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HARRISBURG - A state program that helps pay for community parks and trails, watershed protection, reclamation of abandoned mines and other environmental programs is running out of money and will need a big cash infusion next year.

Pennsylvania's Growing Greener program is a decade old this month, a program born in flush economic times when the state's coffers were overflowing with tax revenues.

The program is running out of money at a time when the state's finances are under great strain and many state programs are at their lowest funding levels in years.

The future of Growing Greener could become intertwined with an ongoing debate about levying a state severance tax on the natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale.

Environmental groups are calling for a $2 billion, 10-year renewal for Growing Greener.

"In bad economic times, Growing Greener can really be considered as an economic development tool," said Jan Jarrett, CEO of PennFuture, a statewide environmental group. "These investments are getting great returns for their communities."

A Luzerne County senator thinks part of any severance tax revenue should go to help support environmental programs.

"I would like to see a portion earmarked for environmental purposes," said Sen. Raphael Musto, D-Pittston Township, ranking Democrat on the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. "As far as I am concerned, Growing Greener should be perpetual."

A list of recent Growing Greener projects in Northeastern Pennsylvania includes: $3.9 million to control the Dolph Colliery mine fire in Lackawanna County; $2.3 million for mineland reclamation at Humbolt in Luzerne County; $1.2 million for mineland reclamation at Greene Mountain in Schuylkll County; $750,000 to expand a soybean processing plant in Northumberland County; $528,000 for improvements to Mehoopany Creek in Wyoming County; $121,000 for a stormwater project in Pike County; and $125,000 to stabilize streambanks at Sylvania in Bradford County.

Growing Greener changed the state's approach to cleaning up rivers and streams by enabling community-based watershed groups to take the lead on initiatives, said David Hess, a former state Department of Environmental Protection secretary who helped initiate the program.

"We found out that 96 percent of the streams that are impaired in the state are impaired because of runoff from abandoned mines, farms and stormwater," he added.

Growing Greener started as a bond-funded program focused on watersheds, open space purchases, parks and recreation, abandoned mines, plugging abandoned gas and oil wells and upgrading water and sewer systems.

A $4.25-a-ton fee on municipal waste disposal in 2002 doubled the funding for the program.

Statewide voters approved a $625 million bond issue in 2004 that expanded the list of eligible projects to include alternate energy, downtown redevelopment, historic preservation and aid to the state Game and Fish and Boat Commissions.

But the bond money will be used up next year and the revenue from the waste fee that went to projects will be diverted to paying off the bond issue instead. Environmentalists want a portion of revenue from a state severance tax to go to replenish Growing Greener funding. Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a five percent severance tax earlier this year, but it was dropped from the 2009-10 budget. However, House Democratic leaders plan to renew efforts to pass severance tax legislation next year.

A bill approved earlier this year by the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee would dedicate 15 percent of severance tax revenue to the main fund supporting Growing Greener programs.

rswift@timesshamrock.com

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